First day: I've come to the West Indies today. The Department of Nature and Island Resources sent a car to meet me at the airport on the island of St. Kitts. The driver asked me what I did, and I told him that I worked in the field of Mammalian Reproductive Strategies. He raised his eyebrows and smirked, "What, they need an expert in the field to tell them how to do it?" Needless to say, I was not amused. I told him that I had come to help save the population of a rodent. He said something like, "All this for a rat?" I didn't bother to tell him that it was actually what appeared to be a previously undiscovered species of rodent, a species that was diminishing due to the growth in tourism and development on the island. I have yet to study this animal, but now that I think about it, what if the driver's right? What if it's just a rat?

Second day: I've been briefed about the animal today. It turns out that the population is very small and threatened by development. The population is so small that the individuals are having difficulty finding mates, and in many cases, the reproductive seasons are being delayed by up to one year. This shows for an incredibly weak population. Locals tell me that the population on St.Kitts has always been small, however never to this extreme. I'm noticing that the nearby island of Nevis has a thriving population that is very healthy. I'm thinking that this healthy population could be used as stock for the recovery operation of the St. Kitts' population. There's no reason why it shouldn't work. I decided that we will bring the animals from Nevis into the population on St. Kitts to bolster the population numbers, ensure the availability of mates, and increase the genetic diversity within the shrinking population. I'll observe the reproductive behaviors for a while, but I don't think there should be a problem. I'm sure the population on St. Kitts will be thriving in no time. Of course first we'll have to get a sufficient number of them from Nevis and transport them by boat or plane. I still haven't seen the animal. I hope I'm not planning all this for just for a rat.

A couple of days later: I studied the animal today. It is definitely part of the squirrel family, but slightly different then the squirrels I know back home. Due to its apparent relationship, I am putting it in the Sciurus genus. The same used for most squirrels. The species name will be indies, after the place where it was first discovered. The Sciurus indies will be called the West Indies squirrel commonly for the lack of a more inventive name. I've always wanted to name an animal after myself but I don't think a rodent is quite what I was looking for. And I wasn't the first to discover the animal anyway. The man who did, Dr. Bubbles did not offer his name. I can understand why.

A couple of months later: It's been a long while since I've written here and I am getting very frustrated. We have made a total of 240 attempts to bring the Nevis animal into the St. Kitts's population and are yet unable to observe a single successful reproductive event. Although the animals look very, very similar, I am now concerned that I may have found two distinct species. I now see that my original name of Sciurus indies will not work for both species. Therefore I will call one Sciurus nevis and the other Sciurus kitts, respectively. Commonly they will still be known as the West Indies squirrel but now of type Nevis and of type St.Kitts. Okay, so the names are still a bit dull, but hey, it's a rodent. So shoot me. After studying the two animals I do see that there are some important difference. But what about the differences prevent the two species from mating?

Another couple of months: I have come to some conclusions concerning the differences between the animals and their lack of mating; hence why they are two different species. I have not yet given much thought to how the related species became distinct. At this point, I will focus on why the differences affect the two species and their mating abilities, and why we were unable to produce a single successful mating event. To start with, there are several physical characteristics that are quite different between the two. The Nevis group weighs about 3 g. more and is an average of 1.5 cm. longer then the St. Kitts group. The latter group, however, has hindlimbs an average of 3.6 cm. longer and forelimbs an average of .3 cm longer. They also are faster by an average of .4 m/s and have an impressive leap height of 1m higher the Nevis group. Though these are just physical characteristics, it most likely relates strongly to the reasoning of why the two species do not mate. Other important factors which pertain directly to reproduction is the fact that the St. Kitts group has a gestation period of nearly 13.4 days longer then the Nevis group. The latter group, however, has an average of 8.7-sec longer spent in courtship display. Because they have adapted to look a little different and reproduce slightly differently time-wise, behavioral isolation may fit in. The two species with all the differences listed above may act differently toward one another then they do with their own kind. The males and females of the two separate species may have little or no sexual attraction between the opposite gender of the other specie. I am sure this is why the two species seem to have no interest in mating with each other. But how did these obviously related animals become two species in the first place?

After a few weeks: I now have a somewhat solid idea on how the two groups of rodents became two separate species. The once united group was obviously separated somehow. Perhaps the islands were once attached at one time hundreds of thousand of years ago. More importantly, they are separate now and the groups are isolated from one another. Over a long period of time it seems that allopatric speciation has occurred. It is possible that speciation occurred as the isolated gene pools accumulated genetic differences through microevolution, namely genetic drift. The smaller population was more likely then the larger population to change substantially enough to become a new species. Assuming that the Nevis group has always been larger, we can guess that it has stayed similar to the ancestral population. The St. Kitt's group, however, seems to be the smaller of the groups and may have been the ones to change more through genetic drift.

We are assuming at this point, as well, that the majority of the change in the species was not produced through adaptations to the local environments. In the West Indies, the two close islands have environments which are very much the same. The St. Kitt's group, now smaller and removed from the Nevis group, may have accumulated genetic differences. The changes in the gene pool happen by chance, and the genetic drift that occurred to the St. Kitt's population may have included some genes that over time did not benefit the population. This may have added to its apparent decline in numbers. In this small, removed population, the amount of differences in traits would have grown, and the accumulated differences would continue without gene flow from other populations. The effects of genetic drift may have produced enough accumulated differences in traits, that the population evolved to become a distinct species from its neighbor on Nevis. That is the explanation I can come up with for now, maybe through more research and time, I will be able to collect evidence to support this theory.